Simona Carini serves recipes and Italian words related to food

Traditional Dish

September 14, 2016

bright colors and flavors (napkin by La FABBRICA del LINO) A soup lover like me1 was excited to get a copy of Soup Swap: Comforting Recipes to Make and Share2 the new cookbook by Kathy Gunst3, Resident Chef for NPR's "Here and Now." If the idea of hosting or attending a Soup Swap Party sounds appealing is because it is: the book provides suggestions and tips for a successful event. Rest assured, though: you don't need to be planning a party to enjoy the book. Its recipes are dedicated to soup lovers of all sizes and flavors: they include vegetarian, vegan,...
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March 09, 2016

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] soup with surprise (placemat by La FABBRICA del LINO) The 25th country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Armenia and the book I just finished reading is Still Writing by Dani Shapiro.2 The two events are connected because the book made me want to cook a special soup for the author and the list of traditional Armenian soups made me choose arganak: "chicken soup with small meatballs, garnished before serving with beaten egg yolks, lemon juice, and parsley"3 (tuorli, succo di limone e prezzemolo). Sounds appealing, doesn't it? The title of the...
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January 29, 2016

strascnat (orecchiette) with crescenza cheese Orecchiette literally means “small ears” (orecchie means ears in Italian). To make them, small pieces of dough are drawn across the wooden board with a blunt-tipped knife, or are stretched and turned inside out on a fingertip. The latter method is the one I showed in my previous posts on orecchiette.1 A video of a woman from Bari making strascnat (the name used in that city for orecchiette)2 revealed to me the beauty of the former method. As the woman interviewed in this article3 (in Italian) says: "the women of Bari use the knife, the women...
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January 10, 2016

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] help yourself: it won't last long (tablecloth by La FABBRICA del LINO) The 22nd country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Russia (Russia). In researching dishes from that country I happened upon an interesting cookbook Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook by Anya Von Bremzen, John Welchman2 where I read about Vegetable Caviars: "The Russians adore caviar and they love vegetables. So, voilà! the perfect culinary hybrid. These vegetable caviars have a terrific reputation." I was intrigued by that with eggplant (ikra), of which, I soon discovered, there are countless versions....
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December 22, 2015

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] Strands of pasta (tasalsan guril), purple cabbage and purple carrots The 21st country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Mongolia (Mongolia). In researching dishes from the country in the heart of Asia, I found out about tasalsan guril, fried noodles.2 These are short strands of pasta cut from a rolled sheet previously pan-fried. How could I not try to make them? And make them I did. I cooked the first batch in some of my homemade chicken broth and the resulting soup was excellent. I then read that tasalsan guril may be...
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December 01, 2015

done with cutting crozets For me, the current selection of our Cook the Books Club, The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais, was a movie before it was a novel. Ten minutes into it, I started fidgeting. Five minutes later, my husband and I agreed it was not worth watching further. Nothing happened in that quarter of an hour to make us wonder what would happen next. With that history, I approached the book with caution and was pleasantly surprised. It is much better than the movie, at least until the midpoint: the story, the characters (particularly the protagonist's mother) and the...
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November 28, 2015

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] making shakshouka The 20th country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Tunisia (Tunisia). In researching Tunisian dishes, I found out that shakshouka (or shakshuka)2, a dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, peppers and onions (pomodori, peperoni e cipolle), which I thought was Israeli, is believed to have a Tunisian origin. Variations of shakshouka are found throughout Northern Africa and around the Mediterranean.3 Shakshouka is a relatively quick to prepare and it makes a great lunch or dinner. There are a myriad recipes for it. What you see below is...
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November 18, 2015

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] initial phase (i.e., before kneading the dough) Recipes for handmade pasta usually instruct you to make a well in the flour and put the liquid (water or eggs) in it, then use a fork or your fingers to mix the two and finally use your hands to knead. But pasta recipes usually instruct you to make a large batch of dough, which I do not recommend when you are learning. This post shows how I make a small batch of pasta dough using semolina flour and water. (The process is almost the...
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September 27, 2015

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] mote pillo, version with golden corn (Italian linen from La FABBRICA del LINO) The seventeenth country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Ecuador. To celebrate this stop, I chose to make my version of mote pillo (or motepillo), an egg scramble with cooked corn.2 As explained in this excerpt of the chapter on Ecuador in the book Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia, This is not the sweet corn with which North Americans are familiar but instead choclo, a huge-grained, chewy, and very flavorsome variety that is used extensively in soups and...
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September 05, 2015

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] making kokoda fish The sixteenth country of our World Culinary ABC1 is Papua New Guinea (Papua Nuova Guinea). To celebrate this stop, I chose to make my version of kokoda, a marinated raw fish salad—the Pacific Islands' version of ceviche.2 Apart for lemon, lime and coconut milk, the ingredients I chose are local. This was the first I worked on a recipe using raw fish. The idea to look for a fish recipe came from the current selection of our Cook the Books Club, Yes, Chef, the autobiography of Chef Marcus Samuelsson....
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To use any of the photographs published in the blog permission must be obtained from Simona
No food was (nor will ever be) discarded in the process of taking the photographs, i.e., everything was consumed either immediately or in due time